


Time and Tide

by AndYetNotBeingDisenchanted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depressed John, Depressed Sherlock, Johnlock love confession, Love Confessions, M/M, One Shot, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, addict sherlock, drug overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-23 01:47:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11392800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndYetNotBeingDisenchanted/pseuds/AndYetNotBeingDisenchanted
Summary: When Sherlock overdoses the first time, he tells himself it's an accident; the second time, he may admit it was a little less accidental. The third time it happened years had past, this one was purposeful, Sherlock was sure of it. He wanted to die.





	Time and Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger Watnings: Suicide Attempt and Drug use.

When John entered the flat it was quiet. Dead quiet. No hum of bow on violin, no click of samples being moved from petri dish to slide, not even a breath. The door to Sherlock's room was open, his coat hung on the rack and the bed was perfectly made. The light was on in the bathroom, a triangle shown, through the crack, it's legs widening until it met the wall over Sherlock's desk. The flat was empty, that was definite. No Mrs Hudson, and no Sherlock. John turned on the light as he walked over to Sherlock's desk. A piece of paper, folded into a triangle so it could stand. *John* it read in Sherlock's script, not his hasty handwriting but the handwriting he used when he was doing something important. John unfolded the paper slowly, taking care not to wrinkle it or damage it. 

*John-  
I fear I must apologize. I must apologize because I know that it was not easy on you last time. In a way, I'm glad it wasn't, that way I know that you care about me. Maybe even love me- in a platonic sense since you have so profusely declared yourself 'not gay'. I love you John, I love you with a strength that I ran away from it for much longer than I ought to have. I've never been good with emotions, or people, or goodbyes. There are so many areas in which I am less than adequate and in a way, I believe that my whole life has been leading up to this point, the point where I sit at my desk, and write a suicide note to the man I love; the point where I load the syringes and find a vein, let the morphine swim into my bloodstream; the point where I lose consciousness for the last time. Don't ask why John, there is no why, there has never been a why, there is always a solution; scientifically speaking John there is always a cause and an effect, and equal and opposite reaction, and I have found mine. Tell Lestrade that Alice Perkins is guilty, tell him that it's not always the wife, but here- it clearly is.  
Goodbye John, I promise you, no tricks, no games. Not this time, Sherlock*

John groped for his phone, he felt like there was a pressure at his sternum, like someone was stabbing him- but had the good will to numb him first. "Mrs Hudson," he gasped, "Where's Sherlock?"

***

Sherlock looked at his hands as they shook slightly, thrust out in front of him. His curly hair was dirtied and matted together with the blood of another man. His fingernails held bits of grime beneath them and around the cuticles, each of his long fingers quivered slightly, the bones rattling on one another as he held them, simply held them. 

His hands shook as he loaded the syringe with the last of the morphine, almost 250 ml he believed. His hands shook as he positioned the needle above his protruding vein and stuck the needle, glancing at the note on his desk as he let the fluid enter his bloodstream, he felt it immediately, so fast he almost didn't bandage the needle wound- not that it mattered, he would be dead.

His hands finally slowed as he sat onto his bed, still made, they slowed as he leaned back into the pillows, his fingers brushing his leg and the duvet as they came to a rest. Soon he felt thick, as if water was seeping into his head, and as pigment was added everything was bright, and as more, and more color was added, each became indistinguishable, soon it was black, muddy, inky black, smooth- but chunky, silky, yet rough. Like every experience he had ever felt existing simultaneously, sounds, tastes, sights, smells and feelings all, in one. The brush of John's chapped lips and the hands on his chest just a moment after, pushing. The wet morning grass under his bare feet, his mother's warm hand and smooth nails, the glint in her blue eyes as she lead him to the lake, where Mycroft and his father already stood. Mycroft's hand on his back and in his hair, his smirk as Sherlock fell, the pain of the scrape, and then Mycroft's hand helping him up. Irene's icy hands and pungent perfume, the smooth skin that covered her body and the silky hair that tumbled down her back. And then John, funny, how it always came back to John, John criticizing him as he frightened children. The thrill of the case, of John, smiling at him and patting him on the back, dressing his wounds. John. Just John. Time and tide wait for no man, Sherlock mused, and why should they?

***

John's heart beat, he could feel it over every inch of his body, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, pulsing. It pulsed through him as he hailed a cab and told the driver, 'hospital'. Too often he was in the hospital, around the sick and the dying, but it never affected him except for the offhand thought 'How sad,' never, 'I will die with him,' because he knew, he always knew that he would die for Sherlock, and that when Sherlock had died it had hurt, hurt like someone had pried apart his ribs one by one just to get to his heart, wrenched violently from his body. And he hadn't bled, no heart to pump the blood, and what did it matter? Why bleed when it doesn't matter if you live, or if you die because you find you are stuck as both- as neither. 

As John sat beside Sherlock, holding his hand, taking his pulse, not daring to let go because it is not only Sherlock's lifeline, but his own. When Sherlock cracked his eyes and looked at John, sitting at his bedside, John saw no confusion.

"You read my note." Sherlock said, his voice rough, like glass against slate.

"Yes.”


End file.
